


Hooked, Brought Back To Tragedy

by orphan_account



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: A Lot of Death, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Abuse Mention, F/F, F/M, Pedophilia mention, Some fluff and humor at the end, Stephanie Brown is A Speedster, Surprisingly, prepare for sadness, some characters are mentioned only - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25178389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Over the years, Stephanie loses more and more people.
Relationships: Artemis Crock/Wally West, Barry Allen/Jessica Cruz, Cassandra Cain/Harper Row, Jessica Cruz/Koriand'r, Stephanie Brown/Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown/Kara Zor-El
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Hooked, Brought Back To Tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> Stephanie is a speedster in this fic, a detail I thought should be mentioned before you began reading. I've put a lot of work into the universe this fic takes place in, but never could write anything solid until now. I'll be writing more stuff that takes place in the same universe as this fic does in the future.

The first to go is Harper.

Harper, who had been Stephanie's friend since she woke from her coma. Harper, who had been a loving girlfriend to Cass for the longest time, maybe even Cass's most important relationship. Harper, who took the name Robin when Tim was forced to quit by his father and worked hard to show Batman she was enough. Harper, who in a moment of distraction, was captured and tortured for 5 days by Black Mask. Harper, who escaped and made her way back to Batman despite the bleeding wounds and chains around her wrists and ankles slowing her down, who received Doctor Leslie Thompkins' best healthcare, but still died.

Stephanie cried and cried when Harper died, but soon the tears and grief turned into anger as she hunted down Black Mask with a righteous fury typically only reserved for her father.

She didn't even know she was about to kill him until Cass stopped her.

The adrenaline from the fight left her body and she collapsed in exhaustion and hunger.

She woke up 3 days later in the hospital, just after Harper's funeral, and Cass is by her side, not wanting to lose anyone else. Stephanie and Cass mourn together once she gets out of the hospital.

*~~~*

Stephanie stops her father and plants him in Blackgate again.

A week passes and Stephanie is too tired to make it back to Gotham, so she calls her mother and tells her that she'll be staying at Barry's for the night and her mother tells her that she loves her and that she'll see her tomorrow.

Tomorrow never comes.

Stephanie wakes up to Wally yelling at her to wake up and that she needs to get to Gotham and Stephanie runs there and sees her mother in the hospital she once worked at. Her system is filled with drugs and Stephanie cries and screams, thinking that her mother fell off the wagon again.

Her mother dies shortly after Stephanie arrives and Steph hopes that she didn't die thinking that her daughter hated her.

Not a few hours later, Bruce pulls her to the side and tells her that her father escaped Blackgate last night and that he made a beeline for her mother's house and forced a bunch of pills down her throat.

Stephanie cries again and runs back to Central City.

*~~~*

Captain Cold finds out that Steph's mother is dead and the next day her father is found on the street as a frozen corpse. She'd be angry with Snart if she wasn't so happy and the thought that she took delight in her father's death scares her.

*~~~*

Stephanie is 16, going on 17, so she needs a parent, but since her only living relatives are her pedophile uncle from her mom's side and her villainous - and pathetic - uncle on her father's side, she instead stays with Barry and Jessica. There's no formal adoption, but she still has her name changed to 'Allen' and she asks that Damian at least use that name if he's gonna continue with the whole "I'm Better Than You Because My Father Is Bruce Wayne And I Will Show It By Calling You By Your Last Name" routine he likes to do.

He still calls her 'Brown'.

*~~~*

Artemis falls next.

Artemis is fighting Kaldur, who had recently betrayed everyone and joined his father as another Black Manta, and he runs a sword through her.

Stephanie and Wally aren't there to see it actually happen, but she finds him crying on the floor of STAR Labs and comforts him as best as she can.

*~~~*

The universe loves to play tricks on everyone.

Harper comes back, but it's not the Harper everyone knows, it's a Harper from where everything is different. She comes from a world where Barry is dead and Wally is Flash.

A place where Dick is Batman.

A place where there's no more Spoiler because Nell Little is just a fan of Batgirl, who's Stephanie Brown and not Maps Mizoguchi.

Stephanie brings Harper back to her own dimension with the help of Cisco and goes to comfort Cass again, still grieving the death of their Harper.

*~~~*

Artemis comes back and it's not a trick this time.

Kaldur fakes his defection and he, Wally, Dick, and Artemis fake her death so they could stop The Light from executing their plans. Stephanie is just glad to have her other best friend back.

And then the other shoe drops.

Stephanie is unconscious when it happens, having taken a bad hit from Black Beetle, but when she wakes up, Artemis is mourning and Wally is dead and Bart is now Kid Flash, having taken Steph's place in her absence.

Stephanie takes Wally's place, now going as the second Speed Zone, not wanting to change the name to honor her 'cousin'.

*~~~*

A new villain calling himself The Red Death drugs and kidnaps Tim and Cass. Stephanie goes to find and rescue them, but he snaps her legs like a twig and hurls them both off a building.

Stephanie ignores the splintering pain in her legs and runs, tears in her eyes. She catches Cass and reaches her hand out for Tim.

She trips.

Everything is slow for her and she realizes in those precious moments that she has a choice to make. She can keep trying to rescue Tim and allow all three of them to die. Or, she can save Cass and hope that her own death makes up for the decision she's about to make.

She chooses option 2 and maneuvers Cass on top of her so that when they land, Stephanie will take most of the impact and Cass will be fine, minus a few injuries.

She hates herself for leaving Tim to his fate, but there's no way she can save them both, she tells herself.

She hears a crack and just knows that Tim fell on his neck. At least his death was quick.

And then pain explodes through her body and she tries to welcome death.

*~~~*

Stephanie wakes up a week later in STAR Labs, Cass standing over her, wearing her Black Bat uniform and pledging that she will help Team Flash catch The Red Death and will not stop until he's caught. Stephanie cries and tries to apologize for letting Tim die, but Cass doesn't let her, tells her that no one blames her and they all know she was forced into an impossible situation.

It doesn't make her feel less like shit, though.

*~~~*

Stephanie visits Wayne Manor. The only ones she finds are Damian and Bruce.

Damian tells her that he's glad she tried to save his brother and calls her 'Allen' and Stephanie wants to smile, but can't, not now.

Bruce buries himself into his work, obviously blaming himself, despite the fact that he couldn't have done anything to stop it.

Stephanie doesn't realize the irony of the statement.

*~~~*

Wally comes back and there's no catch this time.

Barry has a dream, one that tells him that Wally can be saved, how he can be saved, and he goes into the Speed Force and when he comes back, Wally is there with him.

Artemis comes back for the first time in forever and holds onto Wally, vowing to never let him go again.

Wally is happy that Stephanie took his place, so when she tries to offer it back to him, he declines and tells her that he's retiring for good this time and Artemis follows him in that plan.

*~~~*

Barry doesn't go, but he doesn't stay either.

He hands the mantle over to Stephanie and tells her that she's The Flash now and she cries and hugs her father and tells him she won't let him down. He tells her that he loves her and leaves STAR Labs for the last time.

Stephanie slips on the mask and gets to work.

*~~~*

Stephanie knew Kara very well. The two met while Steph was in college and briefly became lovers, but the two broke it off later, not seeing a real connection, although they remained friends.

Stephanie is part of The Justice League now and Superman retires and leaves his cousin to take his place as Superwoman.

The day they formally announce her new position, a Kryptonite bullet pierces her skull and she falls death, blood and brains splattering behind her. Stephanie runs to where the bullet came from and finds Deadshot, already packing his equipment and she captures him and turns him over to police before she does something drastic.

Deadshot is interrogated and they find out that Lex Luthor bankrupted himself by purchasing the last Kryptonite on Earth, fashioning it into a bullet, and paying Deadshot to shoot Kara with it, just to piss off Superman.

Stephanie nearly kills him when she finds out.

*~~~*

Bart and Babs die in the same incident.

It's been a long day and the Titans, Young Justice, Justice League, and a bunch of other hero groups Stephanie can't be bothered to remember the names of are fighting Brainiac when one of his drones shoots a harpoon into Bart's heart and he falls, almost instantly dying. Stephanie burns with anger and she rips the drone into pieces.

Oracle had been unusually quiet towards the end of the fight and it's not until a few hours later that they find out why, when Dick enters the Clocktower and discovers that Barbara's brains had been scooped out of her skull and her lifeless body had been left behind to rot.

Brainiac comes back a few days later. Barbara's consciousness and personality, still knowing everything that was happening to her but unable to do anything about it, is converted into data and stored on his mind. He hacks Delphi, but it isn't long before the system discovers his threat and neutralizes him.

Brainiac is imprisoned and he decides that if he can't do what he wants, they can't have Barbara back, and so he files everything that ever was Barbara Joan Gordon into a folder and deletes it, treating her as if she was just another defunct program.

Barbara is brave and fearless, but as she dies, she can feel herself being slowly erased from existence and she's scared and her voice shakes, but she pleads with Dick not to save her because if he does, Brainiac will take control of The Watchtower and all hell will break loose. Dick and Dinah can do nothing except wait for her voice to fade out. And when she does, Brainiac taunts them, calls them failures.

The next day, Bruce resigns and Cass becomes Batman. And it's only after he quits that they find Brainiac dead, the Golden Rule being broken by the man most dedicated to it.

*~~~*

Jessica leaves.

The pain of her grandson dying is too great and she and Barry divorce and Stephanie's family is split again. The last she hears of her mother, she's living in Florida, now dating Koriand'r, formerly known as Starfire.

Don and Dawn sometimes go to visit their mother and they come to see Mar'i and Jake Grayson as siblings and Stephanie is happy for them, but wishes that it didn't happen the way it did.

*~~~*

Selina Kyle is murdered in her sleep.

The news hits Stephanie like a brick and she instantly rushes over to Gotham, Team Flash duties be damned, and she finds Bruce being arrested as a suspect and Cass and Dick and everyone else grieving. Poor Helena is hyperventilating and crying and screaming at the cops to let her father go, but Damian grabs her and holds her, whispering into her ear that everything will be fine.

The family knows who did the deed, but can't say a word with risking exposing identities, so Cass and Damian suit up Helena and Batman, Nightwing, and Robin fly into the night, The Flash by their side.

Harley and Ivy are at her funeral, an unspoken peace treaty between them and the family.

Selina's murderer is caught and Bruce is released, but it still hurts to know that she is gone forever. Helena cries herself to sleep and has nightmares and will probably turn out like Bruce did and that scares Stephanie. But she helps the best she can, whenever she can, and Helena works through her mother's death.

*~~~*

"What are you thinking about?" Cass asks Stephanie one day, completely unprompted. The two are aboard the Watchtower, having become fully fledged members of the Justice League and even Head Chairmen (Chairwomen?) in place of Bruce and Barry. Stephanie turns to her lover and shrugs.

"Everyone we've lost over the years." She stares out the window, down onto Earth. "You ever think about them?"

"Every day." Cass walks next to her and places her hand in Steph's. "Every day, I miss them. But I am glad to have those who are not gone." Stephanie smiles.

"Me too. Especially you." Steph pulls her in for a kiss and, just like the first time they ever did it, it's heaven and bliss.

"Ahem," announces a voice behind them. Steph and Cass pull away to see Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman - Conner, Cassie, and Kaldur - standing near them. "Mission in five. You two are on," says Conner.

"We'll be there," Cass says. She turns to Stephanie. "Let's not keep them waiting." Steph gives a smirk.

"All these years and you haven't learned that The Flash is supposed to be late to everything?" Cass rolls her eyes, but her smile suggests amusement, not contempt.

"Be early this time." Cass turns around and swishes her cape behind her, a move she definitely learned from Bruce in his "How To Be Dramatic" lessons. Stephanie giggles and decides to take her advice. She grabs her girlfriends hand and prepares for the fight.


End file.
